A recent DAC survey highlights an area of real business risk that many multinationals appear to have overlooked.
Our transnational litigation survey undertaken jointly with Legal Director shows that almost half the Heads of Legal in UK multinationals mistakenly believe that there is no potential threat of their company being sued in the UK courts for the acts or omissions of their subsidiaries overseas.
According to the findings, four out of ten in-housers said their companies have already been threatened with legal action from abroad, and one third report an increase in litigation levels generally. Yet despite this, 49% were unaware that they may have a potential liability to overseas claimants, with a further 29% admitting they did not know one way or the other. And in stark contrast to their US counterparts, only half of the UK multinationals interviewed have in-house lawyers dedicated to litigation. Across the Atlantic, the majority of large companies have sizeable teams
